PressEthic

The Harvard Crimson, a student-run newspaper at Harvard University, publicly apologized for a columnist plagiarizing material that ran in Slate last year. It seems the desperate need to plagiarize is felt at all levels not just among professional journalists like Jayson Blair and Stephen Glass, two of the more famous plagiarists in recent times.

According to an article that appeared in the Boston Globe on Friday, Harvard’s paper “expressed regret” for material lifted from Slate and used by columnist Victoria Ilyinsky. Ilyinsky did not respond to a request for comment.

The president of the Crimson, senior William Marra, said, “Any publication that prints has to look out for plagiarism or allegations of plagiarism.” This has always been the case, but it is even more imperative in today’s competitive world and with public scrutiny at an all-time high.

Allegations of plagiarism in a student newspaper are disheartening. The academic setting is where future writers learn the standards of ethical journalism. It seems idyllic to think that this is one place where the pressure to publish would be less influential then the desire to learn the craft. If we believe the premise set forth in the Cheating Culture, plagiarizing is rampant in newspapers throughout colleges and, most likely, high schools too.

The question that the author of the Cheating Culture, David Callahan, attempts to answer is why cheating, and in this case plagiarism, is so common. Why did Illyinsky feel the need to lift from a published piece? Recent scandals have certainly drawn attention to fabrication and plagiarizing by professional journalists. Can we assume her actions were malicious or was it a mistake? Did the columnist simply not understand where to attribute? Did she have a deadline looming and was experiencing the dreaded, “writer’s block?”

It seems unlikely that she didn’t know what she was doing. Without her comments it is impossible to know the reason she stole someone else’s words. In a time when the profession is under fire it seems even more imperative upon journalism programs, undergraduate and graduate, to create a firmer understanding of ethics.